With his New Orleans-set drama Treme having come to a close earlier this year, David Simon – who also created The Wire – has announced his new HBO TV series, Show Me a Hero.

Simon, who will co-write the show with William F. Zorni, has assembled some blue-chip talent to back him up. Paul Haggis, whose 2004 film Crash won a best picture Oscar, is to direct, with Oscar Isaac and Catherine Keener to take starring roles. Isaac broke through with his leading role in the Coen brothers' film Inside Llewyn Davis, and is currently filming Star Wars: Episode VII, while Keener is celebrated for her subtle work in anything from broad comedy (The 40 Year-Old Virgin) to drama (Synecdoche, New York).

The six-hour miniseries will be set in Yonkers, New York, and is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by journalist Lisa Belkin. She charted the effect of a judge ruling in 1985 that Yonkers must desegregate its housing, by moving poor, mostly black residents of one set of housing projects into another in a more affluent, mostly white side of town. Along the way she focuses on a series of different characters, from the town's young mayor (who will be played by Isaac) to uprooted single mothers, and white residents opposing the scheme.

This is familiar ground for Simon, whose TV shows have constantly focused on the frictions between politicians, law enforcement and ordinary people. His grounding as a crime journalist in Baltimore led to his series Homicide: Life on the Streets and The Wire, the latter of which became celebrated as one of the finest US TV shows ever for its masterful, complex plotting and vivid sense of civic torpor. He parlayed its success into Generation Kill, an account of the opening days of the Iraq war, and Treme, which looked at a post-Katrina New Orleans and which ran to four seasons.

Show Me a Hero is expected to air on HBO, the home of Simon's previous successes, in 2016.